Australia's secret service: inside the world of a butler

By Stephanie Gardiner

27 May 2011 — 12:11pm

Instead of whispering into their cufflinks and protecting the president, a secret service is at work in Australia, cooking, cleaning and maybe even making the odd covert helicopter trip for fresh lobster.

They are modern-day butlers, looking after the every need of the country's rich and famous.

Seen and not heard ... Morgan Ingmire.

Photo: Tanya Lake

Downton Abbey, a British drama series hitting Australian screens this weekend, gives a glimpse into the lives of butlers working for a fictional British aristocratic family in the early 1900s.

Dressed in white tie and tails, the butlers blend in seamlessly with their wealthy employers and watch on silently as their lives unfold.

Downton Abbey ... Lady Edith Crawley is played by Laura Carmichael.

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While the profession has modernised and the tuxedo has been replaced with a uniform of dress pants and polo shirts, discretion remains a key part of the job, Sydney-based butler Morgan Ingmire said.

"You just go about your business in a quiet manner and quite literally be seen and not heard."

Being a butler is not a uniquely British occupation, with those in the industry saying plenty of Australian executives and celebrities have household staff but are unlikely to be public about it.

Mr Ingmire, who worked in the UK and at the British High Commission in Canberra before setting up his business The Secret Servant in Sydney, said there are probably about 50 professional butlers working for families in the city, with just less than half of those being live-in.

Tasmania-based Simon McInerney, who worked for about two years in Highclere Castle where much of Downton Abbey was filmed, said some of the series still rings true to modern-day butler work.

Mr McInerney, who now works freelance while he sets up a business in Tasmania, said a butler's shift will normally be about 12 hours long, starting at 6am.

The butler will prepare the house, set the fire, fetch newspapers, lie out clothes for family members, take children to school, prepare meals, organise maintenance of pools and tennis courts and take care of household administration, like bills and letters.

"A lot of it is creating a mood or an ambience that the family enjoy and can relax in in their own house," Mr McInerney said.

But every so often a butler's duties will give them a brief taste of luxury.

Mr Ingmire said he was once asked to make a helicopter trip to get fresh lobster, but would not reveal if it was in Australia or Britain.

"We were actually remote, we weren't anywhere near coastal ports for seafood, so we were once put in the helicopter and flown to the nearest city to pick up a case of lobster and flew it back to serve it for a meal.

"We always joke that it would have been the most expensive lobster anyone had ever eaten by the time it was purchased and then the cost of the flight up and back to get it."

He also recently arranged a birthday party for a two-year-old that featured a petting zoo, a marquee and a cupcake stand.

"I get asked to do weird and wonderful things all the time."

Mr McInerney said he once helped another butler organise a taxi to travel three hours across the British countryside to deliver about 200 grams of black and white truffle.

He said one of the perks of the job was being able to indulge his inner foodie.

"In a way, at times, you are living the life of the rich and famous, but without the expense to it.

"But you've always got to be very grounded and you must always realise that you aren't ever going to be in their social circles. You should never cross that professional line of trying to be mates with them."

In the interests of protecting their professional reputations, neither men would reveal who they had worked for.

Mr Ingmire was able to say he'd met members of the royal family, Kylie Minogue and U2 through his work.

"I could sit here and rattle a million names off to you, but I think the important thing to note is that I wasn't sitting down having coffee with Bono.

"I was in his presence doing a job and I think people forget ... that you're not standing there staring at somebody who's high profile or famous going 'oh my god, that's Prince Charles,' or 'can I have your autograph' because you're doing a job.

"In actual fact, your mind is that engaged in 'OK ... I'm about to serve afternoon tea, he's about to stand up, how do I engage with him, how do I address him'."

Pamela Spruce, who runs the Australian Butler School, said people thinking about a career as a butler shouldn't have any grand ideas about living in luxury with high flyers.

"If that was what they were interested in, I would counsel them against taking the job," she said.

"It's all very fine to work in a very luxurious environment and have beautiful surroundings but that can't be the reason for doing the job."

She said the school's intensive one month course, which is run three times a year, covers table setting, food and drink preparation, caring for fine clothes and fabrics, vehicle maintenance, household and financial administration, event management and using modern technology.

Graduate butlers can earn $60,000, while a more experienced butler can get a package worth $100,000.

Butlers, often more men than women, are likely to work for families of executives, and many of those on the BRW rich list probably have some support staff, she said.

In Australia, butlers are often referred to as house managers, personal assistants or estate managers, but they may be a well kept secret.

"Even the wealthy tend to be a little bit more self-sufficient, even though they certainly do enjoy having staff these days, it's done on a very low key basis, it's not something that's made public," Mr McInerney said.

Sometimes even bosses can forget themselves around their butlers because they are sharing their private domain, Mr Ingmire said.

"You don't in any way make them feel like they've been judged because they might have come home with a few too many under their belt, or might have had an argument with another family member in front of you or maybe used language that was inappropriate either towards you or towards another member of their family - and I can tell you all of those things have happened," Mr Ingmire said.